Patrons to benefit from sharing deal between Pasadena, Harris County libraries

By John DeLapp, CORRESPONDENT

Published
3:30 pm CST, Thursday, February 13, 2020

Pasadena Library staff members are still working on preparing the central and Fairmont branches to welcome people back.

Pasadena Library staff members are still working on preparing the central and Fairmont branches to welcome people back.

Photo: Andrzej Tokarski - Fotolia

Photo: Andrzej Tokarski - Fotolia

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Pasadena Library staff members are still working on preparing the central and Fairmont branches to welcome people back.

Pasadena Library staff members are still working on preparing the central and Fairmont branches to welcome people back.

Photo: Andrzej Tokarski - Fotolia

Patrons to benefit from sharing deal between Pasadena, Harris County libraries

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Just like that, Pasadena effectively gained 28 new libraries.

That feat came when the city’s public library system entered into a reciprocal agreement with the Harris County Public Library. That agreement gives Pasadena residents full access to the county system’s branches and vice versa.

“Reciprocal borrowing is a win-win for everyone,” Pasadena Library Director Martin Shupla said. “Residents of Pasadena pay taxes to the city and Harris County and now have convenient access to materials they have purchased.”

The agreement will allow Pasadena residents to use their library cards to check out materials at any of Harris County branches or have them delivered to the city’s central library, 1201 Jeff Ginn Memorial Drive, or the Fairmont branch, 4330 Fairmont Parkway, and the La Porte Branch Library, 600 South Broadway St., La Porte.

The two systems have already integrated their online catalogs; so patrons can peruse materials and place them on hold via the internet.

The reciprocal agreement will multiply the works available to Pasadena residents by a factor of 20.

“The materials Pasadena residents can place a hold on has grown from over 100,000 physical items to over 2 million,” Shupla said.

Increased access to foreign language materials

The partnership will be especially beneficial to patrons who prefer materials in foreign languages.

“Pasadena has a growing number of Vietnamese and Arabic speaking residents who can have (access to) native language books from HCPL,” Shupla said. “Harris County Public Library cardholders now have access to Pasadena’s extensive adult Spanish collection, too.“

Shupla said the agreement benefits both sides and comes at a price that can’t beat.

“Both library systems are better with reciprocal borrowing, and the cost was zero dollars and zero cents,” he said.

The library director said it will take time to see the full impacts of the agreement.

“There are many benefits of the deal, and it may be months before we realize the full impact,” he said. “The two most important for now is how easy the process is for library users and how broad the audience is for both library collections.

“With just days of reciprocal borrowing in effect, circulation for both library systems is noticeably increasing.“

This is not the first time Pasadena residents have had access to Harris County books.

Library service in the city dates back to 1922, when the county opened a small station stocked with 100 books.

Pasadena opened its first freestanding library in 1953. The county’s volumes were returned at that time.